Aircraft bomb racks have long had safety locks to prevent unintentional discharge of bombs from the racks. Current bomb rack safety locks can provide for remote locking and unlocking while the aircraft is in flight. However, due to the function bomb rack safety locks perform, safety and reliability considerations have caused current designs to be rather heavy, complicated and costly to implement. Additionally, some bomb rack safety locks are associated with pneumatically actuated bomb racks, which introduces additional challenges in bomb rack safety lock design and usage. Moreover, small bomb racks are typically not designed to use bomb rack locks and devices designed for larger bomb racks, thus leading to multiple designs on which in flight operators and ground crew must be trained.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.